In the event of a system failure, restoration of the system may require restoration of not only data, but also an underlying file system, an operating system, and/or other components. In the event of a system failure caused by a hardware issue, a fire, a flood or other events, it may be necessary to restore an operating system, file system, data, and/or other components to one or more new hardware platforms. Installing an operating system, a file system, and/or other components required for restoration of a failed system on a new system is referred to as a bare metal restore.
Restoration of a file system on a new system may require an identical configuration between the new system and an old system. This restoration may require the availability of identical hardware, which may also need to be configured identically. For example, a file system using a certain level of RAID (Redundant Arrays of Independent Disks) with a certain amount of storage may not be capable of restoration on a different configuration. Additionally, even if an identically configured hardware platform is available, it may be required to first determine a configuration of a failed system. Determining a configuration of a failed system may be difficult to accomplish in an orderly and time effective manner from backups and documentation. Furthermore, certain configurations of failed systems may utilize mirroring, spare disks, and/or other resources. However, it may be cost prohibitive for a company or other entity to maintain an identical configuration on a secondary system.
Additionally, restoration of one or more file system resources on a new system may require the same type of storage management system. For example, if a first file system is managed by a particular logical volume manager, such as a Sun Volume Manager (SVM), the new system may require installation of Sun Volume Manager as part of the restoration.
In view of the foregoing, it may be understood that there may be significant problems and shortcomings associated with current file system restoration technologies.